


Incantatio

by Babbling



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Wizards, BK is a wizard, Developing Friendships, Fantasy, Fluff and Angst, Foreshadowing, Forests, Implied Sexual Content, Junhee as head boy, M/M, Magic, Magic School, No Smut, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Plot, Secret Crush, Spells & Enchantments, Unrequited Crush, Wizards, do I smell some Junkwan?, it's very very light tho, plot heavy, since I don't want to spoiler, some ONF bc I love them, there will be so much happening, wowkwan, y'all know me lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2020-05-02 02:33:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19190164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babbling/pseuds/Babbling
Summary: “Magic doesn't suit everyone. Only those prepared to take full responsibility for themselves should apply.”  ~Peter J. CarrollMany people believe in magic, but Byeongkwan isn’t one of them. After all, he’s not a child anymore. Instead he would go to university soon, finally being allowed to do whatever he wants. At least that has been his plan, but then an accident changes his entire life; forcing him to suddenly attend a school for people that call themselves wizards and think they own magic abilities.Even though Byeongkwan doesn’t believe them at first, he has to quickly realize that magic might be realer than he has thought and that there are many dangerous threats in this new world, he has gotten dragged into.Luckily, he has to stay there only till Christmas, but will he be able to survive that long? And who is the mysterious guy, everybody seems to simply ignore?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> UHhh...yes...it's me :)
> 
> This one isn't a long chapter since it's only the prologue but I couldn't wait to finally post something about this story so...here it is...
> 
> This will take me years to finish...I just know...I mean look at 5tar ugh  
> Anyways, I hope you all are in for another new adventure with A.C.E being wizards this time haha
> 
> I'll add more tags with every chapter, so that I don't spoiler you and I hope you'll give this ff a lot of love bc it's probably my coolest one after "My imaginary friend" :")
> 
> For the people that don't know me yet; HII~ I'm not a native English speaker, so there will probably be mistakes and I'd appreciate it, if you could point them out to me. I also appreciate criticism (as long as it isn't rude one) etc, so feel free to comment or just dm me on Twitter :D (link at the end)

The night was quiet. There seemed to be no sounds except for the soft, even breathing of the sleeping children on the floor and a man’s quiet steps, while he carefully walked up and down the hall, his eyes constantly searching for anything out of the ordinary.

It felt nearly peaceful, so different to the chaos of the battle which had killed and wounded so many of his colleagues not too long ago. He stopped and looked out of the window and into the night sky at this thought. It hurt having lost so many people he had cared about, but at the same time the children's safety would always be his and the others’ first priority. He kept on patrolling, his eyes wandering over the peaceful looking faces on the ground. They had been forced to evacuate all the students after the first attack some hours ago, hoping they would be safe until the backup would arrive soon and manage to get them home to their parents. Suddenly he had to think of his own home; his wife and son that were waiting for him, not even knowing why he hadn't come home for the weekend as planned. Sending them a message was too dangerous. It could mean, they would find them as well and he could never let that happen. He sighed, his body feeling tense, while he ran a hand through his hair and once again stopped.

It was so peaceful, but for some reason he didn't trust the quietness even one bit.

"Hey..." He whispered, trying his best to wake his collogue that was laying close to the door, without also waking up everybody else. The man groaned in his sleep before he slowly opened his eyes and then quickly sat up.

"What is it?! Did something happen?" He shook his head.

"No...but that's what bothers me. Shouldn't there at least be some of them outside? Why does it look like they are all gone?" The other man yawned, while he slowly got up.

"Maybe they aren't cruel enough to harm children after all..." His collogues’ expression told him that he didn't believe his own words either and they both made their way to the window, looking outside. The area was empty except for some trees and bushes illuminated by the soft moonlight.

"See...it's weird."

"It really is..." The other agreed and nodded slowly. Then he turned back around.

"But there is nothing we can do about it. Do you want to get some sleep? I can watch over them for a while...now that I'm awake anyways." However, the man didn't answer him. Instead he stared outside in shock, looking at the dark creatures that were slowly emerging from the shadows of the forest one by one. Fear made his way through his entire body and he searched for a ring in his pocket, holding onto it tightly.

"They are here..." He then said, unable to take his eyes off the approaching figures. "It's too late..." Immediately the other man stumbled to the spot next to him, also staring outside with wide, panicked eyes.

"No! We are not enough...we won't ever be able to defend them!" They both looked back at the still peacefully sleeping children and he made a decision.

 "I have to go out there...the closer we let them get to the children the more dangerous it will be for them." The other stared at him as if he had lost his mind...and he probably had.

"Are you crazy? We aren't enough people! We need to wait for the backup and till then we have to keep them away with protection spells, you can't just—" But he didn't let him end his sentence, there simply wasn't enough time to.

"Protection spells? They won't be strong enough!" He exclaimed, not caring that he was waking the sleeping children. They would have to wake up soon anyways.

"Then do you seriously just want to go out there and try to keep them away, all by yourself? But that's insane!" However, the man was already on his way to the door, feeling his decision consolidate more and more with every scared face, his eyes fell on.

"It’s our only chance! We have to protect them!" Was the last thing he said, before he stepped through the door, the image of his little son coming to his mind. Guilt washed over him and he prayed that his son would be able to understand his actions one day and perhaps even be proud of him…

"No! Oscar, come back!" He could hear his friend's panicked voice call for him. "This will kill you!"

"I know..." He whispered to himself, before he stepped outside and onto the battlefield, ready to face his fate.


	2. "You're a wizard, BK"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I finally decided to stop worrying and just start uploading this ff instead  
> I'm sorry, if the updates won't be regular but I'm super busy at the moment and there are also only two months left, before I'll leave my home country soooo...idk how much chapters I will manage to write till then and how much time I'll have for writing afterwards
> 
>  Now enjoy the first chapter, I really hope, you'll like it bc I put soooo much effort into this ff <3

A lot of shit had happened to Byeongkwan in his life till now, but nearly getting run over by a car, leading in him to nearly die, was a whole new level of shitty.

Yes, okay…he maybe should have paid more attention to the street, before deciding to simply run over it to catch his bus, but the car could have at least tried to slow down. Instead Byeongkwan watched in horror how the headlights were speeding towards him, coming closer and closer in a racy tempo.

 _I’m too young to die…_ was his last thought, before his brain went blank and he prepared himself for the impact of the collision. However, nothing happened. Instead of getting catapulted over the entire street, the car seemed to suddenly just stop. Surprised Byeongkwan stared at it, his brain still too slow to process what was going on. Then his body started acting entirely on reflexes. Without even really noticing it, his shaky legs carried him to the other side of the road, where he stumbled and fell to the ground. There he stayed for a while, staring into the cloudy sky over him, while breathing heavily.

What had just happened? Had he really just nearly died or had it been an illusion and the car had actually been further away than he had thought?

“Excuse me, are you okay?”, a distant voice asked, followed by the head of a man popping up in Byeongkwan’s view. He looked at him for some seconds, before slowly sitting up, his eyes falling on the still busy street. He had just nearly gotten run over but except for the guy who was still watching him, nobody seemed to care. Had he perhaps hit his head or something? Now that he was thinking about it, his head did hurt quite a bit. The pain, he hadn’t felt just a moment ago, but hit him with full force now, made Byeongkwan put a hand on his forehead.

“Argh!” He gasped, noticing how even his vision got blurry because of the blazing pain.

“Do you need help?” The man spoke up again, his face mirroring the worry in his voice. Byeongkwan shook his head, only to quickly freeze since it made the pain even worse.

“Thank you…but I’m fine. I’ll just…go home and…rest…” He got out through gritted teeth, trying to get up without immediately sinking back to the ground. His legs still felt too weak to carry him, but he didn’t want to stay here any longer, where the people walking past them gave them curious looks.

“Actually, I think it would be better for you to come with me…I have something that could help you.” The man said and performed a weird gesture with his hand which only strengthened Byeongkwan’s decision to definitely not go with him. After all every small child learned to not follow strangers and this one didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was weird and probably wanted to lock him up in his cellar, if not do something even worse.

“No thanks…I’m good.” He replied, before quickly walking away. This afternoon was getting weirder and weirder. Byeongkwan actually had been supposed to be at his dance class right now, but considering the fact that he had nearly died and the pain in his head was still killing him, he didn’t feel bad the slightest that he didn’t go. Instead he took a turn, leaving the busy main road, and made his way down a smaller street with only a few people on it, when the tingling of his neck told him that someone was following him. It was a weird ability to feel something like this —some would call it superstition — but until now his feeling had never been wrong. Immediately Byeongkwan stopped and quickly spun around, spotting the weird man from earlier who instead of trying to hide, stopped as well and just smiled at him. If he had been creeped out before, this definitely gave Byeongkwan the rest.

Not caring about how crazy he probably looked like, he started running, not stopping until he found himself in front of the door to his home. Jittery, he pulled out his keys and tried to unlock the door which took way longer than usually since his hands were shaking and his head still felt like someone was splitting it with an axe. Then he finally managed to open the door, sprinting through and closing it behind him with a loud bang.

He sighed in relief, kicked off his shoes and put his backpack away, before he made his way to the kitchen.

“Muuuum! I’m home!” He shouted. “Where did you put the painkillers? I think, I hit my head pretty badly…Like seriously, I feel like I’m dying right now and the pain doesn’t go away and—” Byeongkwan’s torrent of words died off immediately, when he stepped into the kitchen, where his mother was sitting on the table accompanied by nobody else than the crazy man that had just been chasing him some minutes ago. He stared at him in utter confusion and disbelief. Meanwhile his mother and the guy just smiled at him.

“Hello, Byeongkwan.” The man greeted him and reached out his hand, but he didn’t take it.

“That’s not possible…” He muttered instead, still not believing his eyes. Seemed like he had damaged his head a lot worse than he had thought. “You were behind me…just now…you…” Then his brain seemed to catch up and his eyes jumped to his mother.

“Mum, you need to get away from him! He is crazy! He followed me the entire way home and he probably wants to murder us or something!” His exclamation got followed by silence, until the man started laughing. Byeongkwan frowned, while his mother just looked at him as if she was ashamed of him.

“Byeongkwan, how can you say something offensive like this to our guest?” She shook her head in disappointment. “This isn’t a criminal but an old classmate of your father. His name is Benjamin…You might have thought he was following you, but he was actually on his way to visit me.” He couldn’t believe his ears. An old classmate of his father? He had never met anyone who knew his father other than his mother. In general, he knew pretty little about him. He had died, when Byeongkwan had still been a baby and his mother didn’t talk much about him except mentioning now and then that he had been an amazing man. Still, even though he was curious, this didn’t make any sense.

“But…how did you manage to be here earlier than me even though I ran the whole time and you were behind me the last time I checked?” Benjamin and his mother shared a significant look.

“Should I tell him?” He asked, while Byeogkwan watched them, his confusion growing with every word that got spoken, and his mother sighed before she nodded hesitantly, her lips pressed together into a thin line. Then Benjamin turned back to Byeongkwan, a solemn expression on his face.

"I used magic and you, Byeongkwan...you are a wizard." Once again it took his brain some time to process what the other had just said, his headache not being a big help either. 

"What?" He then asked dumbfounded, before he started laughing. 

"Is this some kind of weird joke? Because I'm not in the mood for such things right now." He looked at his mother who smiled sadly. 

"No, it's the truth" She said but Byeongkwan just shook his head, laughing again but this time uncertainly. 

"Mum there are no such things as wizards and magic...No seriously is this a hidden camera prank or something? Will this get aired on TV?" Byeongkwan started looking around searchingly, but no cameras appeared nor did Benjamin and his mother tell him that they were indeed just making fun of him. Instead Benjamin just gave him a sympathetic look. 

"I know it's a lot to take in...I also didn't really want to believe it back then, but it's true."

"No, it's not. I can't burn stuff, when I look at it, or let things fly or whatever weird magical stuff you are thinking of." 

"Has there never been unusual things happening around you that you couldn't explain?" The other wanted to know and without really wanting to Byeongkwan thought about it. There really had been some strange things happening around him sometimes, but just because he couldn't explain them didn't mean that they were caused by him using magic. Therefore, he shook his head, crossing his arms in front of his chest to withstand the urge to put them on his still hurting head. 

"Then what about the accident earlier?" At this his mother looked up alarmed.

"What accident?" She wanted to know, sounding worried, before she eyed Byeongkwan carefully. 

"Your son slowed down time all by himself to prevent getting hit by a car... He has a lot of power." 

"What? Byeongkwan how did this happen? Didn't I tell you to always pay attention while crossing the street!" In contrast to Byeongkwan, Benjamin seemed surprised that his mother started scolding him immediately. He seemed to have expected his mother to be proud instead of angry, but he didn’t know his mother like Byeongkwan did. He had not wanted her to know about this, because he didn’t want her to worry about something that didn’t matter. Annoyed he glanced at Benjamin only to nearly sink to the floor, when the pain in his head flared up.

“Ugh” He groaned while his mother jumped up panic-stricken.

“Kwanni!” She exclaimed followed by her looking at Benjamin. “Do something!”

“Don’t worry…it’s nothing too serious…” The latter tried to calm her down, before he walked over to Byeongkwan and carefully put a hand on his shoulder. Nearly immediately the pain in his head disappeared, leaving behind a weird, dull feeling. The man smiled.

“Do you still not believe me, when I tell you that magic exists?” Byeongkwan frowned. He had to admit that his sureness had gotten some cracks, but still…this all wasn’t possible.

“I believe in science and coincidences. And even if there really is such a thing as magic, I would be the last one who is able to use it. I’m just a completely normal guy and even, if that might sound boring, I actually like living such an ordinary life.” At this Benjamin nodded and sighed, now completely serious again.

“And I can understand that. Believe me, when I tell you that I would love to just let you keep on living your life like this, but sadly I can’t. You hold a lot of power and, if you do not learn how to control it properly you could eventually harm yourself and others if not even worse.” He then turned back to Byeongkwan’s mother. “Three years should be enough to learn the basics, I think. I know the timing isn’t too great since he is actually supposed to go to university now, but let me assure you that I know some people working in great universities that would love to take Byeongkwan in, even though he took such a long break, if he doesn’t decide to stay even longer, of course. Most of our students are a bit younger, when they start but I don’t think, he’ll have a bad time catching up and finding friends. The classes are pretty mixed.” Byeongkwan listened to everything that Benjamin was saying with a growing uneasiness. What was he talking about? What classes? His mother smiled at the other.

“I know, you’ll give your best. Please take good care of him at Incantatio…I don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to him.”

“Don’t worry. Incantatio is completely save these days. You won’t have to—“

„What the hell are you talking about?” Byeongkwan interrupted the conversation, not able to stand the feeling of getting ignored any longer. The two adults looked at him a bit startled, but then his mother opened her mouth to finally give him and explanation,

“Incantatio is a school, where young people like you who own magic abilities can learn how to control them. It’s the same school your father went to, when he was younger and, where I met him…” Once again, she gave him a small smile, but the only thing, he could do was to stare back at her. Never before had his mother told him about how she had met his father or, where he had gone to school. Still…

“What about university…?”

“I know you were excited about going to university honey, but you can still do that afterwards. Like Benjamin said, he’ll find a good one for you for sure. You only need to wait three more years and—”

“Only three more years? Don’t say it like that is nothing! Like you are not asking me to suddenly attend a weird school for crazy people who think they are magicians! Do you even realize how crazy all of this sounds like?” Byeongkwan hadn’t intended to scream, but the thought of his whole life suddenly getting ripped apart and his mother forcing him to visit some kind of weird cult school made his emotions simply explode.

“Byeongkwan, I do not allow you to speak to me like this!” His mother replied angrily, raising her voice now too.

“But I have to allow you to drag me to this school and destroy my entire life?” The loud noise of glass breaking made all three of them flinch startled and Byeongkwan felt his headache return, even though just slightly. A glass had fallen from one of the counters and onto the floor, broken glass pieces and water scattering all over the ground.

“Byeongkwan, you need to calm down.”, Benjamin spoke up first, his voice sounding calm and composed, “We are just trying to help you. I know you might still not believe in your own abilities, but there is a lot of power in you and I know you could never forgive yourself, if you accidently hurt someone with them…” He was just about to tell the other again that he didn’t want to go to this stupid school, when his mother suddenly grabbed his shoulder with a firm grip, while staring into his eyes with an uncompromising look. Byeongkwan knew immediately that the battle was lost.

“You’ll go to Incantatio and these are my last words.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You're a wizard, Byeongkwan."  
> "I'm a what?" O.O
> 
> Literally lmao
> 
> So yes...BK doesn't believe in stuff like magic haha the poor one has to go back to school now...ugh I would hate it :")
> 
> Anyways, I hope you liked the chapter and are excited for more <3 I already wrote over 30 pages so let's see ^^ I planned at lot (like always lmao, I'm the worst)
> 
> My Twitter: [@Babbl1ng](https://twitter.com/Babbl1ng)


	3. Incantatio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiii, I'm back :D this chapter will finally show a bit more of what this fic is supposed to be and I really love it :")
> 
> I hope, you'll enjoy <3

Byeongkwan didn’t know what he had expected his new school to look like but definitely not this ordinary. When he thought of a school for wizards, he imagined a huge old castle like in Harry Potter, not a normal sized building which was expanded with a modern glass complex on the left side.

Byeongkwan frowned, glancing at his mother who walked towards the entrance with a determined expression.

“Are you sure, we’ve come to the right place?” He asked, speaking for the first time since their argument the day before. Yes, he could be that petty…

His mother responded by pointing at something over the main entrance. “ _Incantatio_ ” was written there in big gold letters and that probably came the closest to Byeongkwan’s imagination of how a school for wizards had to look like.

“Mom, why do I have to go there?” He asked with a pout and pleading eyes and his mother sighed.

“I would love, not to have to force you to stay here, but it’s for your own good. What if something happens to you, because you are unable to properly control your powers?”

“But that’s the point…” Byeongkwan exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air towards the sky in frustration, “I do not have any of these abilities, you and Benjamin were talking about! Even if magic really exists, you as my mother should know that I can’t use it and that I’m just a normal human…” At this his mother suddenly stopped and turned around,

“That’s not true! Because _I am_ your mother, I know that you are special…I knew it for a long time, I just… I wanted you to keep living your normal life for as long as possible, before you have to become part of a world that is so much more dangerous…” Her eyes were full of honest concern and Byeongkwan felt how his inner anger slowly abated. His mother sighed again and ran a hand through her brown hair.

“Listen, I know you are angry and that you don’t want to be here, but promise me that you’ll stay and try your best for one semester. Maybe, you’ll even like it…it’s a really nice school. If you still want to go home at the end of the first semester, I’ll come and pick you up myself, all right? Do we have a deal?” Byeongkwan stared at her, hope rising in him before he nodded.

“Okay, deal.” This meant, he only needed to endure it here till Christmas and then he was good to go home again.

“But like I already said, Incantatio is a really nice school and maybe you’ll make some new friends too.” His mother smiled and Byeongkwan opened his mouth to tell her, he probably would not, when an unfamiliar voice interrupted them,

“Oh, you are already here! Welcome, welcome!” The owner of the voice turned out to be a small old man with grey hair and a warm smile who was quickly approaching them.

“Gustav! I didn’t know you were still teaching here.” The man’s face started glowing, when his eyes fell on Byeongkwan’s mother.

“Oh, you know, I could never leave this school…” He then turned to Byeongkwan. “And this must be your son! He looks just like Oscar…but I also see a lot of you in his face.” He gave the younger a friendly smile.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Gustav, one of your teachers in Incantatio. I’m here to welcome you in the name of the other teachers and students. Your name is Byeongkwan, right?” The latter nodded. “Great. Where is your luggage?”

“I left it in the car… Should I go, get it?”

“Oh, don’t bother. I’ll send it to your room later.” Gustav said and turned back to Byeongkwan’s mother. “If you want to, you can leave now. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of your son.” His mother nodded and smiled but he could clearly see the tears gathering in her eyes. Softly Byeongkwan grabbed her hand, forcing himself to smile.

"Mom, I'll be fine. Don't worry." And he was sure of this. After all the school looked just like every other normal school and Gustav didn't look like he could use magic either. The only bad thing that could happen to him was probably getting a suspension, when he would refuse to participate in any weird cult rituals or whatever other weird shit they might be doing here.

"Just don't do anything stupid." His mother warned him, before she squeezed his hand one last time and let go of it again. 

"I'll see you for Christmas." She gave him a sad smile, before quickly turning around and walking back to her car. Gustav and Byeongkwan looked after her for some seconds. Then the other turned to him,

"Well, Byeongkwan. How about I show you your room and then we'll meet someone who's gonna show you around the school before lunch break." 

"Sounds amazing..." Byeongkwan replied, not even trying to sound at least a bit excited. The teacher's smile just got even brighter. 

* * *

 

If Byeongkwan had thought he would see some weird, more magical things on the way to his room, he had been wrong. The rest of the school looked as normal and ordinary as the outside, except that it was a bit more comfortably furnished to give the students the feeling of a home rather than just a place where they had to study. 

Still, Byeongkwan quickly realized that the inside was way bigger than it had looked like at first glance. It felt like they were walking for an eternity before they finally reached the dorms and Byeongkwan felt like he had already forgotten all the directions and turns, they had taken, when they stopped in front of a door which was enlightened by the through the windows shining sun.

“Here we are.” Gustav said, while he opened the door and entered the room, followed by the hesitating Byeongkwan. “It’s probably not as big as your room at home and you’ll have to share it with another student, but I’m sure, you’ll feel at home soon. Yuchan is a really nice boy.”  Byeongkwan didn’t answer and observed the room instead. It was actually a bit bigger than his room at home but considering the fact that two beds, desks and wardrobes had to fit into it, it looked a lot smaller. Still he had to admit that it gave off a comfortable vibe, even though one side was a huge messy chaos, consisting of stuffed animals, clothes and a huge poster of a football team, that Byeongkwan didn’t recognize, on the wall. Frowning he walked over to the unoccupied bed, nearly stumbling over something in front of it.

“Ouch! My luggage?” He exclaimed surprised. “But how did it get here so fast?”

“Magic.” Gustav replied and laughed. In that moment a knock on the door sounded and Byeongkwan spun around startled, his eyes falling on the most beautiful guy he had ever seen, casually leaning in the doorway and looking at him with a friendly expression.

“Ah, Junhee.” Gustav greeted the guy and signalized him to join them. “Come in, come in! You are just on time, like always. I need to be in a meeting in five minutes.” He turned back to Byeongkwan and then pointed at the other,

“Byeongkwan, this is Park Junhee; our head boy. Junhee this is Byeongkwan; our new student. You both will be in the same class, so maybe you can get to know each other better, while you show him around the school.” After Gustav had ended, Junhee didn’t even have time to signalize him that he had understood, because the teacher hastily left the room. Byeongkwan looked after him, feeling a bit anxious to be left alone with such a handsome stranger. He just knew he would likely immediately fuck it up somehow.

“Well…” The other spoke up after some seconds of awkward silence and gave Byeongkwan a smile which could probably make people go blind with its brightness. “Do you want to change first?”

It took Byeongkwan’s brain a moment to realize that Junhee had just asked him a question and he therefore needed to respond. His face simply distracted him too much.

“Uhhh…change?” He finally got out, not sounding very intelligent.

“Yes, into your school uniform.”

“I have to wear a school uniform?” Byeongkwan wasn’t able to hide his shock. Only now he noticed that Junhee was indeed wearing a dark blue uniform which looked like it had been personally designed for him. Gosh they would probably even let him enter a club looking like this.

“Just wait till valentines’ day…we have to wear pink uniforms on that day because the teachers think it’s funny.” The other said and laughed, before he walked over to Byeongkwan’s new closet and took out a pile of clothes, handing them to the younger. “Here you go. The bathroom is through that door, I’ll wait here.” Byeongkwan eyed the uniform in his hands skeptically.

“But the school doesn’t even know my size…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m sure it will fit perfectly.” Junhee gave him another grin and then let himself fall on his bed, pointing at a door to their left. “Go on…we don’t have much time left.”

 

Byeongkwan definitely did not like exchanging his own comfortable clothes for the school uniform. It was as if the last part of his former life got taken from him too and for some reason that made tears gather in his eyes. Why couldn’t everything just stay the way it had been before? He had been happy, but now he felt lost and alone in a world he had never wanted to be a part of.

However, Junhee had been right. For some reason the clothes did fit him perfectly. Not that it made him look even close to as handsome as the other. Instead, he felt extremely uncomfortable and hideous, while he slowly stepped out of the bathroom. What he had not expected were Junhee’s eyes to light up, when they fell on him, and a smile to appear on his face.

“Woah, Byeongkwan, you look great!” He exclaimed and the other felt himself blushing.

“Thanks…” He mumbled, awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other.

Junhee pulled a phone out of his pocket, quickly taking a look at the time.

"Okay, so we have less than an hour till lunch, so we should probably hurry. Why are you looking at me like that?" He asked with a confused frown, while Byeongkwan hastily closed his open hanging mouth.

"You have phones here?"

"Of course, we have phones here...there is even WiFi... Gosh Byeongkwan... we are a school for people with magic abilities, not the middle ages. I wouldn't even know how to survive without my phone... I use it all the time. Now come on!" Still not over the fact that wizards seemingly also were completely normal teenagers and didn’t still use letters to communicate, Byeongkwan followed Junhee who walked out of the room and down the hallway in a quick tempo.

“You might have noticed, but even though our school looks pretty small, it’s huge. So, pay attention to where you are going in your first weeks or else, you’ll probably get lost. If that happens you can hope that you either find someone to show you the way, the school takes pity on you or you’ll just have to wander around until you find your destination.” The other’s explanation confused Byeongkwan more than it helped him.

“What do you mean with, I should hope the school takes pity on me?” He asked while trying to keep up with Junhee.

“Well, if you’re lucky it will show you the way. Oh, we’ll leave the building here.” The head boy opened a glass door, leading them both outside into a pretty, green park.

“This is the school garden. It’s pretty nice at day but can be super scary at night. In general, it would probably be better for you to not leave the building after sunset as long as you don’t really know what you are doing. They really like to scare people.”

“Who does?” Byeongkwan wanted to know, but once again he didn’t get an answer since Junhee was already some meters in front of him. With an uneasy feeling he eyed one of the bushes to his right. Was there perhaps something watching him? Or was the other just making fun of him?

“Are you coming?” Startled Byeongkwan looked over to where Junhee was waiting, before he quickly caught up to him.

“Don’t worry, they can’t harm you.” He said and smiled but that didn’t make the other feel any better at all.

“What you really should not do though, is taking a stroll through the forest at night. It’s not really dangerous either, nothing here is, but once in a while some dark creatures do find their way into our school territory and they love the forest. It’s cliché, I know.” Again, Junhee laughed as if any of the things he was saying made any sense and did not make him sound like he was crazy. Byeongkwan just nodded along, while noticing that the whole school was actually surrounded by the forest. They probably simply didn’t want him to secretly run off and that was why the other was supposed to scare him…

“Whatever, that stuff is not cool...” Junhee said and started walking again. They reached an old looking building, separated from the main building. It came closer to what Byeongkwan had the actual school imagined to look like, but it wasn’t a castle either. It had a huge glass cupola as a roof and Byeongkwan had to admit that it looked impressive.

“What is cool though, is this.” Junhee said and opened the door for him to walk in.

“Woah…” Byeongkwan gasped, when they entered a huge room, flooded with sunlight from the glass roof and with colorful, old looking paintings on the walls. It was completely empty and for an odd reason it reminded him of a gym…a really fancy one. The floor consisted of dark wood but it looked dull and dirty.

“What is this place?” He wanted to know, his eyes not knowing, where they should look first. “A gym?” At this Junhee chuckled.

“Something similar. Back then, when there were still many battles instead of the peace that we know today, the students had to learn how to fight in here. You know all that stuff that one knows from books and movies.” For the first time Byeongkwan didn’t care that this all sounded absolutely crazy. Instead he felt something like enthusiasm rise in him.

“You mean stuff like magic duels?” The other nodded. “Whoa, that’s so cool!”

“Yes…well…It was.” Byeongkwan frowned.

“What do you mean, _was_?”

“I told you…we have peace now, so we don’t need to learn things like that anymore. This place here is mostly unused, but I think it’s cool and wanted to show it to you anyways.” Junhee smiled at him, before he turned around and walked back into the direction of the door. “Let’s go! Lunch will be served in ten minutes and I’m starving.” Byeongkwan looked after him and then at the paintings on the wall. Now he could recognize that they were seemingly showing battles. A war between what seemed to be wizards and dark creatures that made his uneasiness from earlier return. However, it got mixed with disappointment which he couldn’t explain. After all, there was no magic, so why was he sad about not being able to learn how to use it to fight?

“Byeongkwan?” Junhee called for him, already outside.

“Coming!” He replied and quickly followed him.

They both had not noticed the person watching them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "YoU hAVe SMarTPhonEs HerE?!" BK darling...bdkjbfb
> 
> Ahhh I really loved writing this chapter... it was so much fun :"D I hope you liked it too and you are curious to get to know more about this new world, BK is now living in^^
> 
> Thank you all for reading. Feedback and constructive criticism is very much welcomed hehe  
> See you soon~
> 
> Also if you decided to maybe follow me on Twitter after all, my handle is [@babbl1ng](https://twitter.com/Babbl1ng)^^ There you can stay updated about my fics or just fangirl about A.C.E with me hahah (which I do all of the time so....)
> 
>  
> 
> PS: do I smell some Junkwan...? o.o


	4. The grumpy cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey~ sorry it took so long but I'm currently focusing on finishing some of my other projects :)
> 
> Now have fun guys~

Byeongkwan did not realize that lunch meant, he would have to meet a whole room full of people that he didn’t know, until they had nearly reached the dining room and the loud noises of people talking and laughing was no longer ignorable. Without asking his brain for permission Byeongkwan’s legs suddenly stopped, making him freeze some meters in front of the door. Junhee didn’t even notice that he was gone until he turned to him to tell him something. Confused he looked around until his eyes fell on the other still standing behind him like he was rooted to the ground and a sympathetic expression appeared on his face, before he walked back to him.

“Hey, is everything all right?” He asked and Byeongkwan took a deep breath, before he nodded. He would not act like a little child in front of a guy who literally looked like an angel. The latter gave him an encouraging smile.

“I know, it’s scary, but don’t worry, you’ll be fine. You can sit with me and my friends and you’ll finally get to know your roommate. He is so excited… he didn’t talk about anything else than meeting you since he got the news that he would get a roommate, yesterday. We all want you to be here Byeongkwan and we all can’t wait to get to know you better…Believe me.” Byeongkwan had not expected it, but Junhee’s words really worked and made him feel a lot better. To know that the people inside of this room seemingly did not think of him as an intruder but more of an addition made his anxiety slowly fade away. Once more, he took a deep breath, before he took a step into the direction of the dining room and this time Junhee stayed right by his side.

However, his anxiety came back with full force, when they walked through the door and all heads turned to look at them. There weren’t that many heads. The school seemed to be even smaller than Byeongkwan had imagined. Carefully Junhee grabbed Byeongkwan’s shoulders and, under the noise of whispers, lead him to one of the tables in the back of the room. It was already occupied by two boys in their age of which the first one smiled as brightly as Junhee always did, while the second one gave him a skeptical glance. Instantly Byeongkwan started praying that that wasn’t his roommate, because he got the feeling that he would definitely lose, if they should ever fight.

“Guys, this is Byeongkwan.” Junhee introduced him, while signalizing him to sit down on one of the two still empty chairs. The head boy then pointed at the two boys.

“This are Chan and Donghun”, he said and the first one – Chan, who was still smiling – enthusiastically shook Byeongkwan’s hand.

“Nice to meet you! I’m your roommate, so if there is anything you need, just ask. I hope we can become great friends!” Byeongkwan couldn’t help but return his smile, while he nodded.

“I hope so too…”

“Maybe you should clean up your room first.” Junhee threw in, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “I don’t want to know what Byeongkwan thought, when he came into his new room, but one couldn’t see half of it under all your dirty clothes!” Chan’s smile faltered.

“I’m so sorry! I’ll do it right after classes.”

“It’s fine…I’m not much cleaner anyways…” Byeongkwan quickly said, not liking how down the other looked.

“No, no! I’ll clean!” Chan exclaimed and wildly shook his head, but he looked more comfortable again.

“Byeongkwan, what do you wanna eat?” Junhee suddenly asked and smiled at him, while the third guy – Donghun – watched them with an annoyed expression.

“Uhhh… I don’t know.”

“Okay, I’ll just get you the same, I’ll get, then.” He was just about to leave, when Donghun spoke up for the first time since they had met,

“Why do you have to get him food now too? Don’t you think he can go, get it on his own?” At this Junhee sighed and rolled his eyes, before he turned to grumpy-guy.

“I’m just being nice, Donghun. He is new here and probably overwhelmed by everything. Getting him some food is the least, one can do…”

“I’ll go then…” Donghun said and got up, walking over to something that looked like a table full of food. Junhee sighed once again, before smiling at Byeongkwan apologizingly.

“Sorry…he’s having a bad day today…which sadly kinda makes it a bad day for everyone…” He then quickly followed the other to the buffet, still looking perfectly calm but also obviously angered. Byeongkwan stared after them confused, before he turned to Chan.

“Do they not like each other?” The other stopped eating for a second and then started laughing.

“You have no idea. They hate each other…at least sometimes.” The answer confused Byeongkwan even more just like all the ones he had gotten from Junhee before. Was this like a wizard thing? Confusing the shit out of people all the time?

Then Junhee and Donghun returned, both carrying plates loaded with food, while they were still bickering. While the head boy sat down, Donghun nearly slammed down the food in front of Byeongkwan, before he went back to eating his own.

The rest of the lunch break was filled by Junhee and Chan leading the conversation, Byeongkwan now and then answering their questions, while Donghun didn’t talk at all and instead sulked silently. Then a loud gong sounded and suddenly the air around Byeongkwan was filled with groans. Chan joined them too, while Junhee started stacking up their dirty plates with a peaceful smile.

“Math… I hate math.” Chan groaned, placing his forehead on the table and Byeongkwan frowned.

“Math?”

“Our next class…” The other mumbled and rested his chin on his arms with a pout.

“You have math here?” He wasn’t able to hide the surprise in his voice and the other three shared amused glances.

“Of course, we have math here. Math, English and every other subject, you have in school.” Junhee said while Chan started grinning.

“You didn’t seriously think we would just try to turn water into wine the whole day, right? This sadly isn’t a fantasy book…we still need to get a job after school and go to university, so we also have to learn all the stuff normal students have to learn.”

“It’s similar to a dance school. There the students learn how to dance and it makes the school special but at the same time they still need to learn how to distinguish animal and plant cells from each other.”

“I didn’t know we are a dance school…” Donghun threw in, only to earn an angry glance from Junhee.

“Shut up!” And he did.

* * *

 

Later, while Byeongkwan listened to one of his new teachers talking about a math problem, he really didn’t care about since he had graduated not too long ago, he thought about everything that had happened till now. He had been in this school for around four hours now but except for people here saying weird things and acting like they were all crazy, Byeongkwan had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. No magic creatures, no magic classes and no magic in general. This school couldn’t be more normal and more boring.

His eyes fell on Chan next to him who looked at the teacher with an open mouth and wide eyes as if the latter was talking in a language, he couldn’t understand. Then he groaned in frustration.

“I simply don’t get it! This all doesn’t make sense…” He whispered and looked at Byeongkwan with a desperate expression.

“It’s not that complicated though.” The other replied, before taking a look at Chan’s notes.

“Then why do I get a completely different result?”

“Because you forgot to add the first one…”

“Oh…” Quickly Chan did what Byeongkwan had told him, before looking at him with an amazed expression. “Woah! You are a genius!” At this, the other started laughing.

“No, I’m not. I just had all of this in math class already and it’s seriously not that difficult.”

“It’s to me…” Chan muttered and before thinking about it, Byeongkwan opened his mouth again,

“I could help you… you know, explain you the things, you didn’t get.” Chan’s eyes grew even wider and a smile appeared on his face.

“You would do that? Even though we only know each other for an hour or something?” Byeongkwan shrugged his shoulders.

“Why not? We are roommates, so it’s not like I won’t get to know you better eventually anyways.”

“Thank you!” Chan exclaimed, before quickly lowering his voice again, when the teacher gave them an annoyed look. “I’ll definitely repay you somehow.” Byeongkwan only shook his head.

“You don’t have to.”

He might not like this school, but he had to admit that Chan and Junhee were really nice people.

* * *

 

The next morning, Byeongkwan got woken by a loud gong noise which startled him enough to make him fall out of his bed and onto the cold hard ground. He groaned, still sleep drunken, and felt confusion rush through his body, when he looked around but didn’t recognize his surroundings at all. Then his eye fell on a still peacefully sleeping boy in the opposite bed and the memories from the day before literally collapsed on him.

He wasn’t at home, where he should be, but in a weird kind of boarding school for people who thought they owned magic abilities but probably were just mentally unstable. Again, his eyes fell on his new roommate who had now started to quietly snore. How could Chan still be asleep after this? Was he deaf or did this happen every morning? The thought filled him with horror. Suddenly the semester, he had to stay here, seemed too long and the wish to just return back home filled his mind.

“Only till Christmas…” He mumbled in the hope to somehow encourage himself, before he got up and walked over to the bathroom. On the way he quickly grabbed some random clothes, only to remember that he had to wear a uniform here and he sighed and turned back around to get it from the chair onto which he had thrown it the last evening.

Some minutes later, he stepped back into the bedroom, only to see Chan still laying in his bed, sound asleep. Byeongkwan frowned and then took a look at his phone. It was already past seven and as far as he knew, breakfast was in around 15 minutes. He thought about, if he should just let Chan sleep and try to find the way on his own, but then he sighed and slowly approached the bed.

“Chan…?” He asked carefully and hesitantly touched the other’s shoulder. However, except him stirring in his sleep, Chan didn’t show any signs that he thought of waking up. How had he managed to be on time for classes without a roommate till now? In that moment someone started loudly knocking onto their door like crazy, making Byeongkwan jump in shock and even waking Chan from his deep slumber.

“Channi! Get up! I know you are still asleep and you are late!” A voice screamed through the door and Byeongkwan recognized it as Junhee’s. This explained a lot. Seemed like the head boy was also Chan’s personal alarm clock and for some reason Byeongkwan thought that was cute. Still the confused stare, the younger gave him, reminded him that he was still touching his shoulder and he quickly pulled his hand away, feeling how his face turned red out of embarrassment. He knew his new roommate for not even a day and he had already made things awkward between them.

“Uhh…I tried to wake you but…seems like Junhee was faster.” He mumbled and looked down on his feet.

“Oh, that’s really nice of you.” Chan said, sounding honestly thankful which gave Byeongkwan enough courage to look back up and into his still sleepy but also smiling face, “I’m so sorry…My mom always tells me that I sleep like a bear in hibernation and nothing can wake me…well except for Jun maybe.” He laughed, before rubbing both his eyes with his hands.

“What time is it?” He then wanted to know, followed by him yawning.

“7:18 am…” Byeongkwan replied with a quick glance at his phone and Chan shot into an upright position nearly immediately.

“That late already? Shit, we have to hurry!” With these words he quickly disappeared in the bathroom only to reappear two minutes later, messily dressed and with a still wet face. His hair wasn’t brushed either and stuck out to all sides, but he didn’t seem to care. Instead Byeongkwan watched him quickly throw various things and books into a small backpack. Right, they actually had classes to attend… Byeongkwan was back in school and he really didn’t like that fact. At least he didn’t need to care about getting good grades since he had already graduated some months ago.

“Okay, let’s go!” Chan announced and they both left their room, heading down the corridors in a speed that was better described as running than walking.

“What’s our first class today?” Byeongkwan asked, feeling how breathing slowly started to feel more and more difficult. By now they were definitely running.

“Spells…I think…” The other got out, already heavily panting and Byeongkwan frowned.

“Spells…? Like magic spells and stuff?” Chan nodded.

“Exactly…We always have those subjects in the mornings and the normal ones like math in the afternoons. That’s why you haven’t seen any cool classes yet.” They had nearly reached the dining room and slowed down again, so that they hopefully wouldn’t look like they had just run the entire way…which they totally had just done.

“But if this really is a wizard school…”, Byeongkwan wasn’t able to ban the skeptical undertone from his voice, but Chan only smiled at him, “Then why haven’t I seen anyone using magic yet? Or any magic wands?” Even though he had meant this question completely serious, it made the other burst out in laughers.

“Magic wands? Byeongkwan…this isn’t Hogwarts. You don’t actually need wands to perform magic, even though it does help some wizards to focus their magic powers. Still most of us don’t use wands, as for the lack of people actually casting magic spells and stuff…that’s because it`s forbidden. We are only allowed to use magic in class and in training rooms at specific times under the supervision of a teacher.”

“Why?” Again, Chan laughed.

“So that no one ends up blowing up the whole school…Magic can be really dangerous, you know. Especially, when you don’t know how to control it properly and that’s why we are here after all…” At the end of his explanation Chan had suddenly gotten really serious, which gave Byeongkwan an uncomfortable vibe since the other was usually always smiling. However, before he was able to ask him about it, they had reached the dining room and the opportunity had passed.

When they entered the hall, all heads turned towards them just like last time and Byeongkwan started nervously fiddling with his clothes, while they made their way to the same table as they had for lunch and dinner. However, unlike the last meals, where Junhee and Donghun had looked like they wanted to fight each other at any minute, they were now feeding each other, happily giggling.

Byeongkwan rubbed his eyes, not believing what he was seeing. Maybe he was actually still dreaming? Suddenly his feet felt like they were rooted to the ground, making him stop some meters away from the giggling couple.

He felt his heart sink and cursed himself. Why did he have to get crushes so easily? However, Junhee was perfect crush material, so it wasn't even his own fault. Also, maybe the two were just really close friends.

In that moment Chan reached the table, and the two looked up, Junhee spotting Byeongkwan in the process and he immediately started to smile and wave at him.

"Byeongkwan, we are here!" He called out for him and the other felt his face getting hot, while he forced himself to walk towards them. Chan had already sat down and started putting food onto his plate which, unlike at lunch and dinner, was already placed on the tables.

When Byeongkwan reached the three of them, Junhee immediately shoved all the food towards him, saying something along the lines of "if you don't eat, you'll die and that's bad". He sounded exactly like Byeongkwan's mother and for some reason that made him feel better...but maybe that also was because of the way Junhee smiled at him, because that shit made his stomach do backflips too...Dammit, he definitely had gotten a crush on the other and he hated himself for it.

Even though, he still didn't know what the relationship status between the two was, Byeongkwan couldn't help but guiltily glance at Donghun to see, if he had already caught onto something, but in complete contrast to the day before, the other looked content and even gave him a small smile, before he kept on eating his cereals. That didn't make it any better. Instead Byeongkwan started questioning, if that was even the same person that he had met the former day or if Donghun got a twin. Now even magic didn't seem as odd as it still had just some minutes ago.

"Don't you want to eat?" Junhee suddenly asked and Donghun looked up again and right into Byeongkwan's eyes who quickly turned to the head boy.

"Huh?"

"You are not eating and instead watching Donghun eat...we still have those cereals left if you want to eat them." Junhee shook a box full of cereal so that it made rustling noises and he looked seriously worried

"Oh no, it's fine!" Byeongkwan quickly replied, feeling guilty for making the other feel bad and he grabbed the next thing in his reach which ended up being the milk. He didn't usually eat cereals for breakfast but today he would literally do everything to make Junhee feel better again and get out of the awkward situation. The head boy smiled at him and grabbed a bowl to put the cereals in it. Meanwhile Donghun watched them, but also this time he didn't seem angry or annoyed at all and only looked amused.

"You should stop worrying so much..." He scolded Junhee but his voice was full of fondness.

"I don't want anyone to feel unhappy or be upset..." The other mumbled and proceeded to also pour milk over Byeongkwan's cereals who tried to signalize him that he was more than capable of doing such a task on his own, but Junhee didn't even notice it, being completely focused on the bowl. Donghun reached out his hand and softly squeezed his arm.

"We all feel comfortable...right guys?" He looked at Chan and Byeongkwan who nodded in agreement, Chan immediately focusing back on eating as much as he was capable of in the short time that was still left.

"See." Donghun squeezed Junhee's shoulder once again, before he got up.

"I'll leave first. I forgot my book in our room...see you at spells." With these words he left and Byeongkwan hated that he still hadn't figured out if the two were just friends or if there was more going on between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the love and feedback, I've gotten till now! <3 It means a lot to me, especially bc this is the most effort I've ever put into a ff since it's more of a fantasy story than just the usual ff stuff about love etc (which I also love but it's way easier to write and plan in my opinion)
> 
> Ik it's taking a while but we'll slowly get to the action^^ Right now is more of an introdcution to all the characters and the whole world (how it's working etc) but it's all necessary for the plot :)
> 
> Also thank you so much for the first fanart I've gotten! (you can look at it [here](https://twitter.com/sehstorm/status/1163473314544795648)) Seriously it's amazing and I'm so so thankful <3 always feel free to draw fanart if you want :") it motivates me so much to keep on writing!
> 
> That's kinda it :D I hope you enjoyed the chapter and you can follow me on Twitter if you want uwu ([@Babbl1ng](https://twitter.com/Babbl1ng)) 
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated! <3


	5. Spells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise~ I bet you all didn't believe in this anymore lmao

They did see Donghun again in the class, he had called "spells", and once again he acted as if the day before hadn't happened. Instead he even gave Byeongkwan a nod, when he and Chan sat down behind him and Junhee. Then the latter asked him something and he turned back around, suddenly completely focused on Junhee, listening attentively. There was something in the way he looked at the head boy that convinced Byeongkwan that there was definitely something going on...or at least that Donghun was in love with Junhee and he felt his heart sting a little. It wasn't only that once again his crush didn't seem to eventually work out but also the fact that he envied what they shared, whatever that was.

In that moment Gustav entered the classroom, making everyone go silent.

"Good morning guys!" He greeted the class as cheerfully as he had been the day before, carrying a very old-looking book. The students all greeted him back and Chan softly nudged Byeongkwan into the side, smiling at him brightly.

"Well...? Are you excited for your first class, using magic?" It took the other some seconds to remember that this wasn't a normal school but a school for wizards and that this class wasn't a normal one either but "spells", where they were supposed to learn magic spells. Byeongkwan could hardly prevent himself form starting to laugh. In a couple of minutes, he would finally see that this was indeed just a completely ordinary school and that the people here were nice but crazy.

"Oh yes...I'm very excited."

Gustav started the class by talking about something they had done the class before and seemingly had been supposed to practice as a homework. Byeongkwan didn't really listen to him. He was too focused on watching some students planting flowers and pulling up weeds in the school garden. Then the teacher started giving out sheets of paper to the class and by Chan's whining Byeongkwan figured that they had taken a test the former lesson.

"Shit...I should have studied more..." He groaned, after he had gotten his own one back and shoved it into his bag before Byeongkwan could catch a glance of it.

"Jun, Donghun, how did you two do?"

"Okay...I guess." Donghun replied, slightly turning around while Junhee was still scanning his paper.

"And Jun?" Donghun just snorted amused.

"What do you think? He got a perfect score as always." Chan only nodded as if he had already expected that, while Byeongkwan's eyes widened in shock and surprise.

"Always? Really?" Chan and Donghun started laughing, the latter somehow looking proud.

"Of course, Jun is the smartest person, I've ever met. He'll probably study at Oxford or something."

"That's not true! I'm not that smart..." Junhee now joined their conversation too, his face getting a dark pink shade. At this Donghun only rolled his eyes, finally reminding Byeongkwan of the person, he had met yesterday, but again there was only adoration in his eyes, when he looked back at Junhee.

"Stop being unnecessarily humble...you ARE super smart."

"Mmhh..." The other made a sound of agreement, but it didn't sound convinced, while he looked at something behind Byeongkwan. The latter frowned and turned around to follow his stare, his eyes falling on a boy sitting alone in the back. He seemed similar uninterested in the class as Byeongkwan, staring out of the window like he had too, some minutes ago, his test laying on the table in front of him, seemingly still untouched.

The first thing Byeongkwan noticed about him was his hair. He himself had had dark hair his entire life, but the hair of the other was shining brightly silver and reflected the soft sunlight so that it looked like it was emanating light itself.

The second thing he noticed, was his handsome face. Combined with the hair it made the boy look like a literal angel and for some reasons that caused the urge in Byeongkwan to wanting to stare at him for forever.  But as if the other had felt his stare burning on his skin, he suddenly turned his head, directly looking into his eyes and it made Byeongkwan freeze.

There were no emotions in them. No friendliness, no anger or annoyance. He simply looked at Byeongkwan, binding his eyes on him so that it now seemed completely impossible for him to look away. Instead he could only sit still, while he felt his breath go uneven, his heart start beating faster and faster and his whole body turning incredibly hot. Byeongkwan had never felt more defenseless, more vulnerable than in this moment and was just about scream, because of the fear and frustration to not being able to control his body anymore, when someone called his name which somehow stopped the ban.

"Byeongkwan...? Byeongkwan!" The younger blinked confused, while he took a deep, shaky breath.

"Huh?" Slowly he turned back around and looked at Gustav who eyed him with raised eyebrows, a patient smile on his lips.

"I said, this is your first magic class, right?" It took Byeongkwan's brain some seconds, before it had processed the question and he slowly nodded.

"Yes...huh...yes it is..." His voices sounded hoarse.

"Well then, I'm gonna come and try to go through the basics with you, while the rest of you..." He took the time to smile at every single student in the class, before he continued, "will have some more time to practice our last lesson, all right? I know that you all didn't practice as much as you should have, so see this as a chance to somehow quickly improve."

Immediately everyone started talking, turning around and asking each other questions or for help. Byeongkwan wanted to keep on watching them, so he could see if they were indeed using magic, but Gustav suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking the view to keep his promise to show him the basics, while Chan joined Donghun and Junhee.

“So…Byeongkwan…” Gustav started, his former smile getting replaced by a serious expression. “What do you know about magic?” The other stared at him, desperately searching for things he had learned in movies in his brain.

“Uhhh…You need spells to use it? And special hand movements?” It was a wild guess since Chan had already told him that they weren’t using any magic wands, but by the slightly amused expression of his teacher he could tell that once again, he was wrong.

“Not really…But don’t worry that’s what most people think. Spells, magic wands, hand movements…that might all be part of it somehow but in the end, there are way more important things.” At this Byeongkwan frowned. He still didn’t believe in any of this, but it was slowly getting interesting.

“You need to know that magic and using magic is all about feelings and emotions. Have you ever watched Harry Potter?”

“H…Harry Potter?” The sudden mentioning of the famous fantasy works confused the younger. “Of course…I’ve read all the books too.”

“Then you can probably remember how they defeated the Dementors. It’s similar to that. Instead of just using spells you need to have an exact picture of what you want to do in your head and pair it with a feeling that seems fitting to you. It’s different for everybody, even though most people imagine things like warmth, when they want to light a candle, just as an example. You combine all this with the feeling of your magic power inside of you and voila, you should be able to cast a magic spell.” Gustav finished and gave Byeongkwan a smile who stared at him with wide eyes. This sounded even crazier than he had expected.

“So…how should I start then?” He wanted to know and Gustav pulled a candle out of his pocket.

“For the start, try lighting this candle. It’s one of the easiest tasks since it’s pretty easy to find a fitting imagination and feeling, but don’t worry if it doesn’t work immediately. Using magic is harder than you might expect it to be.” Byeongkwan nearly started to laugh. He didn’t even believe in magic so why should he think that this was easy? But instead of saying that aloud, he only nodded.

“Then, do you have any more questions?”

“I don’t think so…”

“All right. Practice in the study room after classes and you’ll quickly get the hang of it.” Gustav smiled one last time, before he got up and placed himself in front of the classroom again.

“Okay guys, time is up and I can’t wait to see your results. Form a line please!” Immediately everybody did as them told and suddenly Byeongkwan was the only one still sitting. He knew that Gustav probably didn’t expect him to join the others, but he still felt uncomfortable and eyed his new friends that were talking to each other, Chan looking a bit desperate. He was probably asking Jun for some more help as long as he was still able to. Byeongkwan’s eyes traveled past them only to notice that he had been wrong and that there was someone else who hadn’t gotten up either after all. It was the silver-haired guy from earlier. Instead of standing with the other students and preparing himself for whatever they were about to do, he was sitting in the same place as before and once again he looked up as soon as Byeongkwan’s eyes fell on him and stared back without revealing even the slightest bit about what he was thinking. Quickly Byeongkwan turned back around, scared of being forced to feel the horrible feeling of being without any control again. The silver-guy was scary…still he also somehow made Byeongkwan curious. Who was he and why did no one seem to care that he wasn’t participating in class at all?

“All right…Changyoon, you are the first one? Are you sure that that was a smart choice?” Byeongkwan turned his attention back to the events that were happening in front of the classroom, where Gustav was currently talking to a brightly grinning boy with dark hair. Even while making fun of him, he sounded fond and his student didn’t seem to mind everyone laughing at his teacher’s joke.

“I thought you might be less disappointed to see me failing, when you don’t have any expectations yet.” At this Gustav raised his eyebrows in amusement.

“I’m telling you all the time; you are smart but too lazy…Okay then, show me…” Changyoon nodded, his smile slowly fading and getting replaced by a concentrated expression, while he focused all his attention on a glass on the teacher’s desk. Just like the rest of the class Byeongkwan stopped breathing, eager to see if something would happen, even though he had been so sure about everything only being a dumb play some seconds ago. What if he had been wrong? What if magic really did exist after all which would mean that he was indeed a wizard?

However, with every second that passed without anything happening, Byeongkwan’s body started to relax again. What had he been thinking? Of course, there was no magic and that was also why nothing was happening right now except of the guy named Changyoon to be staring at the glass as if he wanted to set it on fire…which perhaps could be the case. Still what counted was the fact that nothing happened and Byeongkwan had to suppress a smile. Seemed like he would be on his way home soon.

In that moment Gustav’s sigh disturbed the silence.

“Okay that’s enough…I don’t know why is seriously had expectations from you this time…”

“I’m sorry…” Changyoon apologized but it didn’t sound very upset.

“Don’t think I’ll just let you off the hook like this next time! You’ll practice hard till the next class or I’ll make sure, you do it in detention.” Again, he sighed. “I need to see some actual good results now or I won’t be able to keep on being so nice to you all…” Gustav’s eyes wandered through the room until they fell on a particular person and the smile returned to his face.

“Junhee…why don’t you show all your classmates, what they are supposed to do, because I feel like some have lost the red thread a while ago.” As soon as the teacher had said Junhee’s name, Byeongkwan’s head shot around a second time to look at him. He watched how Donghun fondly pushed him forward and his heart made some weird, uncomfortable jumps again. Then the head boy hesitantly took Changyoon’s former place in front of the desk, closing his eyes to gather his full attention, before he opened them and stared at the glass with an expression that gave Byeongkwan goosebumps. There was an intensity in his eyes, he couldn’t describe, but it made him hold his breath and wait tensely without even knowing what he was waiting for. At first nothing seemed to happen, just like with Changyoon, and he wanted to relax again, when suddenly the glass turned into something grey right in front of his eyes.

The whole class gasped impressed and Byeongkwan could hear Chan cheering, while he himself couldn’t take his eyes of the glass. That simply wasn’t possible…he must have seen wrong or there had to be some kind of trick to it. There was no way that magic actually existed and Junhee had just used it.

“Well done!” Gustav looked extremely enthusiastic, while he gave Junhee an appreciative pat on his shoulder and then took the former glass into his hands. “Like you all can easily see, Junhee managed to fully turn the glass into stone. It’s not an easy task, so you should be proud of yourself.” He smiled at the head boy who had turned pink under all the attention and compliments.

“Thank you…” He mumbled and made his way towards his place in front of Byeongkwan, where he gave him a small smile before he sat down. The other still wasn’t able to process what he had just seen. His whole body was in denial, even, when Gustav turned the stone back into a regular glass cup and the other students started to try to transform it too.

In most cases the glass cup turned slightly grey or nothing happened at all. Then there were people like Donghun who managed to turn it halfway, but in the end nobody except Junhee had been able to transform it completely and Byeongkwan noticed that he was extremely impressed by that. By the end of the class, he had slowly started to accept the fact that magic seemingly really did exist, even though he felt like he was turning insane, whenever he thought about it for longer.

* * *

"Well...?" Chan asked Byeongkwan with in excitement glowing eyes, after the class had ended and they were settling down on the grass outside of the school building. It was still warm and they weren't the only ones that had decided to spend their break in the sun rather than inside.

"Well what?" Byeongkwan wanted to know, while thankfully taking an apple from Junhee who gave him a small smile that made his stomach tingle. Donghun had excused himself earlier, apparently having something he wanted to talk about with one of their teachers and Byeongkwan had to admit that he enjoyed the time, the other wasn't around Junhee. He felt like he finally had him to himself again; no jealousy needed anymore.

" _Well_ , how did you like your first magic class?" Chan formulated is full question and Byeongkwan quickly stopped staring at Junhee who was now peacefully eating his own apple.

"It was... surprising..." The other two shared an amused glance before they started to laugh.

"You should have seen your expression, when Jun turned the cup into stone...I had such a hard time controlling my face." The younger said after a while, slowly calming down again. "Did you seriously not consider magic to be real at all? Even though you can control it yourself?" Byeongkwan shook his head.

"No...never...I’ve never used magic before..."

"You probably did, but you simply didn't know that it was magic..." Junhee now joined their conversation too. Byeongkwan used the chance to quickly change the topic, not wanting to talk about himself any longer,

"You were amazing earlier though!" He complimented the head boy and the latter blushed.

"I just practiced a lot..."

"Don't pretend like you aren't a genius." Chan threw in with raised eyebrows. "Donghun also practiced a lot together with you and he still didn't manage to transform the whole cup." There he was again; Donghun. And that without him even being present.

"Are you sure that you aren't the best student in the entire school?" Byeongkwan wanted to know, changing the topic once more, and Junhee's face got an even darker shade. "No...I'm not..." He whispered while Chan rolled his eyes at him.

"Stop putting yourself down...you are at least as good as him...maybe even better. Just because he got one more point than you last year, doesn't mean he is still the best student now..." Byeongkwan frowned confused, not able to follow the conversation any longer.

" _Him_?" He wanted to know and the expressions of his friends told him, that they had forgotten that he had only recently started attending their school.

"Ahh...you probably don't know. We were talking about--" But Chan wasn't able to tell him the name of the mysterious person, because Donghun let himself fall onto the grass next to Junhee right in that moment, like so often softly squeezing the other's arm and because of that Byeongkwan immediately forgot about everything else. Instead he watched with jealousy how Junhee smiled at Donghun and started asking about his talk with their teacher, while Chan had gotten lost somewhere in the depths of his phone, seemingly already having forgotten what they had been talking about in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shit...I'm sorry that this literally took half a year but I was super busy (I was in China and then corona happend so I'm not anymore lol) and had a huge writer's block. I'm back now though so...How's it going? :")
> 
> Poor BK already got a major crush...Also...Who can be the myterious guy with the silver hair? (Love how I started writing this in Under cover era lmao but the hair is not random so just wait and see^^)
> 
> Follow me on Twitter (@Babbl1ng) and stay updated~


	6. The Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter is pretty long, so I hope you'll enjoy ^^

After the second day in the wizarding school which – as Byeongkwan now knew – was indeed a school, where people were able to use magic – he would probably never get used to that fact – time started to pass faster. In his next spelling class, Gustav already expected Byeongkwan to start using magic himself and, when nothing happened, he seemed disappointed. The weird thing was, Byeongkwan was actually really disappointed in himself too. Even though he had told himself the entire time that he wasn't able to control magic and didn't see a use in doing so anyways, a small part of him had secretly hoped it would be different. Realizing that he had been right after all therefore felt a bit like a punch into the stomach.

"You just need more practice to get used to it. You'll be able to do it soon." His teacher had encouraged him and then handed him a whole box of candles which he was supposed to practice to lighten. But even after three more classes, he was still unable to do anything more than looking at them. No matter how long he stared at the wick or how hard he tried to focus on the feeling of the heat of fire on his skin, nothing happened. There wasn't even smoke.

Byeongkwan groaned in frustration, leaning back, while throwing the candle, he had held in his hand till now, onto the table in front of him. Even after practicing for days nothing seemed to have changed.

"It's not working...I told you, I'm not a wizard!" He exclaimed, knowing very well that he was sounding like an impatient little child. Junhee who was writing on an essay next to him looked up with a sympathetic expression.

"Don't say stuff like that...of course you are a wizard or else you wouldn't be here. You just need to be patient for a little longer and practice. Using magic isn't easy, even for wizards with more experience than you." Byeongkwan felt himself pouting, while he watched the head boy who calmly continued doing his homework.

"It always looks so easy, when you do it..." He then mumbled after a while and again the other looked up and smiled softly.

"That's a lot of practice... it's not easy for me either... I'm not as special as you make me out to be, you know." Byeongkwan couldn't help, but return his smile, already feeling a lot better.

"Chan is right, when he says that you are putting yourself down way too much. I think you are seriously amazing! It looks so cool, when you use magic...like...really beautiful..." It took his brain some seconds to realize that he had indeed said all of these things aloud in a gushing tone and felt his face getting hot, while he quickly glanced at Junhee who had a similar red face.

"Thanks, Byeongkwan." He said after what seemed to have been hours, sounding flustered. _Shit_...If He kept on acting like this, he could as well as just tell Junhee about his stupid crush.

"No... problem..." Byeongkwan mumbled embarrassed and quickly grabbed the candle again to have an excuse to no longer having to look at Junhee. The latter also shifted his attention back to his essay and like this the former silence returned. Or at least it did for another 15 minutes, because after that Byeongkwan was hit with a new wave of frustration.

"It's still not working!" He whined and Junhee sighed, seemingly slowly losing his patience too.

"Maybe try thinking about a different picture or feeling? Fire might seem easy at first but for some people the best association isn't always the heat of a flame but something else. At least it was in my case." That sparked new hope in Byeongkwan.

"Really? Then what else do you think of, when you are lighting a fire?" He wanted to know interested. What he hadn't expected though was for Junhee's ears to turn bright red and him to quickly look back on his essay, seemingly flustered.

"Just... something...that makes me feel hot...I guess..." He mumbled, but so quietly that the other had a hard time understanding him. He frowned. What was it to make Junhee who was always acting so calm and composed this embarrassed? In that moment the gong sound – to which Byeongkwan had gotten used to by now – signalized them that the self-study hour was over and that they had some free time till dinner. To Byeongkwan’s surprise the head boy literally jumped up as soon as the sound had died down again.

"You will be able to do it eventually.", he encouraged Byeongkwan, while hastily packing his stuff, "Just practice some more tomorrow and get some rest for now. If you need anything or have any questions, you can always find me in my room or just text me." Like so often he smiled at Byeongkwan and the latter returned it gratefully. Then Junhee wanted to turn around and leave, but Byeongkwan had gathered all his courage to finally ask something he had wanted to ask the other the entire afternoon,

"Can you...would you study together with me again, tomorrow?" Junhee looked surprised and Byeongkwan quickly kept on talking, too scared to get rejected otherwise, "It's just, you are really smart and I feel like I need your help... Of course, you don't have to! But I just thought you could maybe do your homework in the meantime, like today...I'll be quiet, I promise! I won't disturb you or—"

"Whoaa Byeongkwan, calm down." The head boy interrupted his rambling, chuckling softly. "Of course, I can study with you, if you want. I wanted to offer you my help anyways." The other felt relief and happiness wash over him.

"Really? Thank you!" Junhee smiled.

"It's not a big deal, seriously. You are less of a distraction than Donghun, believe me. Studying with him can be so annoying sometimes." Byeongkwan didn't know how to feel at this statement. He liked the fact that Junhee apparently preferred his company for studying but at the same time he asked himself what he meant by Donghun being distracting. He quickly pushed away some of the images that came to his mind of the older touching Junhee like he did too often in Byeongkwan's opinion. As far as he had observed by now, Donghun was a nice guy, even though Byeongkwan hated to admit that, but sometimes he got phases in which he turned into a grumpy grandpa that annoyed everyone, including Junhee who then always started to bicker and fight with the other. Whenever that happened, Chan only rolled his eyes at them and put in his earphones, but Byeongkwan secretly really enjoyed those days because Junhee often tended to spend more time with him. Just like today.

"Great then...see you later at dinner." Byeongkwan said, sounding maybe a bit too happy and excited but the other didn't seem to notice.

"Yes, see you!" Junhee only replied, before he hastily left the room, Byeongkwan watching him with a jumping heart. He couldn't wait to spend an hour with Junhee every day from now on, even though he would also have to study.

 

However, he should have known that he wouldn't have Junhee all to himself like he had hoped. Even though there were indeed days, when it was only the two of them, most of the time Chan would also study together with them, usually having gotten forced to do so by Junhee.

"How do you want to graduate if you don't ever study or do your homework? Awards don't come without work." The head boy said, whenever the other tried to find a reason to not study with them and Byeongkwan always only returned Chan's pained glances, not saying anything, but wanting his friend to be somewhere else at least as much as he himself.

Sometimes even Donghun accompanied them, but then the air always seemed to become colder, while Junhee and the other didn't say a word and just silently ignored each other. Luckily that didn't happen too often since Donghun apparently preferred to study on his own in his room or when Byeongkwan had classes that he didn't attend. The older always acted nice around Byeongkwan but he still noticed that his presence seemed to bother him just as much as the other way round and by now he had figured that it was probably because of Junhee. After all it was pretty clear that Donghun liked the head boy; a lot... Byeongkwan just didn't know to what extend Junhee returned his feelings and asking about it scared him. He didn't really want to know if the two were a couple but at the same time the uncertainty drove him crazy.

Then the day came on which everything changed.

Byeongkwan had taken his usual seat in the study room, placing his box with the candles in front of himself, while he waited for Junhee's arrival with a fast beating heart. Today was the day. Today, he had sworn himself to ask Junhee about his relationship with Donghun and maybe even ask him on a date, if he turned out to be single. Not that he knew where one could go on a date here...Maybe to the forest? He sighed, nervousness creeping through his body and he closed his eyes in prayer.

"Please, let him be single.”, he thought silently, "Please let this work out only once."

Till now Byeongkwan's crushes had all ended up being one-sided which honestly sucked big times, but he had also never had a crush this intense before. Therefore, he really hoped that for once his heart wouldn't get broken, because he had the feeling it would hurt worse than ever before.

So, he waited and waited, only for Junhee to not show up. Byeongkwan glanced at his phone with a confused frown. By now the head boy was thirty minutes late which wasn't like Junhee at all. He usually always already waited for Byeongkwan, when the latter arrived, or at least texted him, when something else had come up. That, however, wasn't the case right now. Instead he neither replied nor read the confused texts Byeongkwan had sent him and he was slowly getting worried. What if something had happened? Maybe Junhee had suddenly gotten sick or tripped and fell and was now lying somewhere in his room without being able to call for help. The other quickly shook his head to get these horrible thoughts out of his mind. The head boy was probably all right. Maybe he had simply forgotten that they were supposed to be studying right now...Or he had fallen asleep. Now that Byeongkwan thought about it, Junhee had indeed seemed pretty tired this morning. He nodded to himself. _Yes, that was likely the reason_. Still it would probably be better to go and check on the other just to make sure, he wasn't currently dying after all. Not to forget that their class was supposed to help in the kitchen for dinner, soon, too, and someone like the head boy couldn't miss a duty like that. He had to be a perfect example for the other students after all.

With these thoughts on his mind, Byeongkwan slowly made his way through the school towards the dorms. He had slowly gotten used to the many corridors and only got lost once in a while nowadays. However, if he did get lost it sometimes took him hours to find back to the main corridors and every time, he asked himself how big the school really was. It definitely had to be casted with a spell, because from outside, it didn't look any bigger than his old school, only to turn out to be a huge maze, when one entered it.

Still lost in his mind, Byeongkwan eventually arrived at Junhee's and Donghun's room. He had been here only twice; to borrow a book from Junhee and give it back to him some days later, but he knew that the inside of the room looked similar to his own one. Except that it was a lot less chaotic.

Now that he was standing in front of the door again, he felt his heart speeding up nervously.

"God dammit...why do I always have to become such a nervous wreck around him?" Byeongkwan whispered to himself, before he took a deep breath, gathering all his courage, and hesitantly knocked onto the door. Then he waited and waited, but even after what seemed like hours there was still no answer neither someone opening him. Byeongkwan frowned.

He knocked again, but also this time he didn't get an answer. That was weird. He was pretty sure that the other had told him, he wanted to bring some stuff to his room, before he would come down to the study area afterwards. Had Junhee really fallen asleep after all? Should he perhaps wake him?

Hesitantly he tried the door handle only to notice that it wasn't locked. That meant, either Junhee or Donghun must be inside and with new confidence, Byeongkwan opened the door completely, being met by two pairs of eyes that looked at him in a mix of surprise and shock.

Junhee and Donghun were indeed in their room but instead of the head boy sleeping or Donghun reading a book, they were both sitting on Junhee's bed, Donghun slightly bent over the other.

Byeongkwan stared back at them with wide eyes, slowly taking in the scene, while his brain tried his best to process what exactly was going on. The first thing he noticed was the fact that for some reason Donghun wasn't wearing a shirt; the golden skin of his upper body shimmering in the sunlight, while Byeongkwan spotted his shirt on the floor next to the bed. The next thing he registered was the way in which they were touching each other; Donghun's big hands on Junhee's cheeks, while the other’s were seemingly the cause for the messy state of the older's hair.

Even with Byeongkwan's brain working extremely slowly, like, when one was trying to run underwater, it didn't take him long to realize what exactly was going on and what he had just interrupted them doing.

"I'm—I—", he started mumbling, not really knowing, where this was going, while he felt his heart breaking into small pieces inside of his chest. "I'm sorry..." Byeongkwan eventually managed to get out before he spun around and ran out of the room, ignoring the voices of Junhee and even Donghun that told him to come back, so that they could talk about everything. Instead he left the school building through the first exit he could find, stumbling through the park, surrounding the building, while his sight became more and more blurry.

Why had he been stupid enough to fall for Junhee? After all it had been pretty clear from the beginning that he didn't have the slightest chance with someone as perfect as him. For Gods sake, Byeongkwan wasn't even able to use magic, even after trying for an entire month! Meanwhile Donghun wasn’t only smart but also really handsome…It was easy to see why Junhee would choose him over Byeongkwan.

Not really knowing, where he was going, Byeongkwan stumbled forward, not noticing how close he had come to the forest until he was completely surrounded by trees.

Normally that would have scared him, but right now his mind didn’t seem able to think about anything else than Donghun and Junhee together and how much that thought hurt. He finally stopped running and simply stood in the forest, while silent tears were streaming down his face. Then his legs suddenly gave up under him, leading Byeongkwan to slump down on his knees. For the first time, the sound of a sob managed to escape his mouth and he covered his face with his hands, before he finally let everything out; all the pain in his heart, his confusion, his fear of the new world, he involuntarily had gotten dragged into, and his frustration that nothing seemed to work out anymore. His whole life had gotten turned upside down and he was so sick of it.

Byeongkwan didn’t know for how long he stayed like this and cried, but the next time he looked up, after he had slowly calmed down again, it was already dark around him. Tired, he wiped away the still wet stains from his cheeks, before he started looking around in the hope to find something that could lead him back to the school. He actually didn’t want to go back there and having to face Junhee again, but he also didn’t want to spend the night in the forest and he needed his belongings, so he could finally travel back home and leave this hell of a school. Byeongkwan didn’t care what everyone told him. Magic was seemingly real indeed, but that still didn’t mean he truly had to be a wizard.

He took a deep shaky breath, before he slowly stood up onto his wobbly legs. He had no idea, where exactly he was or how far he had run into the forest, but panicking wouldn’t be of any help. Therefore, he simply decided to walk into the opposite direction, using the torch on his phone to light the ground under his feet so that he wouldn’t end up stumbling and breaking his neck. Byeongkwan’s heart did hurt, but he also certainly didn’t have a death wish.

He walked and walked but even after what seemed like hours there was no end to the forest in sight and he started asking himself, just how big exactly the forest was. The fact that he had never been in it or had paid any attention to it, while driving to the school with his mother a month ago, didn’t help either. Byeongkwan cursed his past-self, running a hand through his hair in frustration, while he scanned his dark surroundings. By now even the last bit of light seemed to have disappeared and had gotten replaced by dark shadows and scary noises instead. Suddenly Junhee’s warning from, when the other had first shown him around the school, came back to his mind and Byeongkwan felt fear creeping up his back. If magic was indeed real, did that mean that the dark creatures, Junhee had talked about, were real too? Suddenly the other felt paranoid, eyes looking at him from every corner and horrible monster from horror movies lurking behind every tree. Without really noticing it, Byeongkwan started running, his breath turning into white fog since the nights had gotten really cold with the approaching autumn. Then his phone ran out of battery, shutting down and leaving him behind without any source of light other than the moonlight which barely managed to shine through the thick leaves of the trees around him. Once again Byeongkwan stopped, the panic, he had tried to suppress till now, making its way out with full force. The tears from before came back, but this time he wasn’t crying because he was hurt but because he was scared.

Byeongkwan was alone at night, in a forest that he had never been to and that he had gotten warned about. He didn’t have a possibility to call for help nor did he know if anyone was searching for him in the first place. At the thought of Chan, Donghun and Junhee sitting in the dining hall, peacefully eating dinner, while they were talking and laughing —Donghun and Junhee maybe even feeding each other again like they did so often — without even caring that Byeongkwan wasn’t with them, the latter felt the wound in his heart getting ripped open again.

He started sobbing once more, the tears not helping him in any way since his vision became even worse, while he was turning around in a circle, searching for something, _anything_ , to show him the way back to the school or at least outside of the forest. However, there was nothing and Byeongkwan was just about to give up and maybe curl himself into a ball of misery to just cry, when he heard a muffled sound in the distance. Immediately, he stopped crying, listening carefully to make out if he hadn’t maybe heard wrong, while he slowly stumbled into the direction, the sound had come from. The closer he got, the better he could make out the noises and after some minutes he realized that it was two voices talking. Byeongkwan frowned. They both seemed to be male, but he was pretty sure that he had never heard any of them ever before. Still, while the first voice that was talking the most sounded pleasant, yes even soothing, the second one gave Byeongkwan goosebumps. It reminded him of fingernails scratching over a blackboard or the cracking of bones, when someone was stretching, and he shuddered. This voice didn’t sound like anything from this world and he suddenly just knew that it would be better to get as far away from its owner as possible.

Still, Byeongkwan’s curiosity won and instead of running away, he carefully walked closer, hiding in the shadows of the trees, while he approached a small clearing. No book or anything else could have prepared him for what he witnessed there.

Just like he had guessed, there were two figures in the clearing, standing in front of each other with some meters distance between them. Since Byeongkwan’s hiding spot was located diagonally behind one of them who was wearing a hooded cloak which covered most of their body, he couldn’t make out much except that they seemed to be human. The thing in front of them, however, definitely was not.

The creature was something Byeongkwan had never seen before in his life, reminding him of the monsters from his worst nightmares. It had huge, completely black holes as eyes which seemed to absorb all the little light around it, while it owned a maw full of big and extremely sharp-looking teeth. The rest of its body was covered in shadows but now and then Byeongkwan could make out claws or other things, he wasn’t able to describe, but made his stomach turn upside down. The urge to just run away was worse than ever, but he simply couldn’t, feeling like his feet were glued to the ground and his eyes unable to look away from the monster which now looked scarily close to as if it was grinning. Then it spoke again and just like before, Byeongkwan felt the hair on his arms and neck lining up.

“I do have to admit that it’s pretty brave of you to just put me in a trap like some kind of animal. You must be really strong or else you would already be dead…you know that, don’t you?” The disguised person in front of Byeongkwan didn’t seem to be cowed by that. They only sedately rolled up their sleeves like they weren’t standing in front of a monster that had just threatened to kill them.

“It’s brave of you to come this close to the school.” They then replied after a while, sounding completely calm. “I could just call for help and you would be the one ending up dead, not me.” At this the creature made a horrible sound that sounded like someone screaming in pain and lead Byeongkwan to cover his ears with his hands, while his heart sped up in panic. Only, when he saw the maw of the monster being pulled up at the corners, he realized that the thing had just laughed and he begged to never having to witness this again.

“We both know, you won’t do this. Don’t try playing tricks with me. I know exactly who you are and why you called me.”

“If you know, then answer me.” The mysterious person said, sounding challenging and still calm, but Byeongkwan noticed that their posture had gotten more tense.

“Give me one good reason, why I should do that.”

“Because that’s the only way, I’ll let you live.” Again, the creature started laughing and while covering his ears, Byeongkwan noticed that this didn’t seem to go the way, the person had wanted it to, at all.

“We both know, you aren’t strong enough for that. I admit, you seem to have even more power inside you than him, but that doesn’t mean you can just kill me entirely on your own.”

“Don’t talk about him!” The mysterious wizard exclaimed and for the first time there was a crack in their act of being completely composed.

“I can talk about him as much as I want. I mean…wasn’t that what you captured me for in the first place? So that I tell you the information, you need, so that you can rescue him or something?” The creature’s grin became even bigger. “Just what exactly makes you so sure that he even wants to be rescued? Maybe he already became one of us…I mean, if he hasn’t died yet.” At this the wizard stumbled forward, their hood falling down in the process and revealing bright silvery hair. Byeongkwan couldn’t believe his eyes. That was the mysterious guy from his class!

“He would never!” The latter screamed angrily, only to suddenly stop in his tracks, his arms still hanging in the air at the height of his chest, his hands clenched into fists. It took Byeongkwan some seconds to realize that the other hadn’t simply stopped because he had wanted to, but because he suddenly was unable to move and with another shudder, he had to think back to his first spell class, when the same boy had done something similar to him.

“Awee…How does it feel to be powerless all of a sudden?”, the monster wanted to know, slowly coming closer until it was standing right in front of him. Byeongkwan couldn’t see the guy’s face but he knew that it was probably full of horror and panic. “You want to know how I am able to move freely like this? Well, I told you, you are not as strong as you might think. I only let you live till now because I thought it was entertaining to watch you, but then you became annoying…” The creature shook its head in played disappointment. “The only fun thing about you now, is the fact that I’m able to kill you. I bet our leader will be very pleased…Any last words?” It waited for some seconds before it laughed again but this time Byeongkwan didn’t cover his ears. Instead he watched in horror, how the monster leaned even closer. He needed to do something! He couldn’t just let the guy die, even though the only encounter they had had, had been an unpleasant one.

“Ahh…I forgot…You can’t speak.”, the creature continued in the meantime, “Too bad…Then I will have to just kill you quicker.” It opened its mouth, showing off even more teeth than one had been able to see before, when Byeongkwan suddenly stumbled forward without entirely realizing it. Immediately the monster’s attention was on him.

“Stop!”, he screamed, while his legs carried him closer and closer, even though everything in his inside told him that he needed to get away; that this was a suicide mission. He had no idea what he was doing or how he was supposed to get out of this situation again, but he had always been a very impulsive person.

“Oh…There are two of you. Seems like you weren’t as dumb as I thought. Or maybe not, because now I’ll simply kill both of you.” Suddenly Byeongkwan felt how the control of his body got withdrawn from him and he wanted to scream in panic but his throat wasn’t able to produce any sounds any longer. “You should have attacked me from your hiding spot without a warning instead of just running towards me. Even though I have to admit, you looked very funny.” The monster grinned. “Because of that I’ll let you live a while longer, while I’ll kill you friend first.” With these words it turned back to the other guy, continuing, where Byeongkwan had interrupted it.

He felt despair rage inside of him, while he watched how the creature slowly bent over its first victim.

“No! Stop!” Byeongkwan wanted to scream, trying to fight against his invisible chains, but without any success. His thoughts were a complete mess of blank panic and fear. He needed to stop the monster, no matter what it would take. Then the first blood dropped to the ground and something inside of Byeongkwan exploded. His skin turned hot like fire and his mind was filled with a storm of emotions, while his eyes went blind. He heard somebody scream but it took his brain what seemed to be an eternity, before he realized that it was his own voice. Then there was only pain, raging through his entire body and making him whine in agony, before everything around him went dark again, while he fell into a groundless hole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay but this chapter is one of my favorites so far hahah writing it was so much fun and I couldn't wait to finally post it even tho it took me half a year...damn djbakdbak
> 
> Now the story is finally starting for real and I hope this chapter made you feel excited for what is yet to come hehe  
> Also feel free to leave a comment about your ideas what Junhee is thinking about when he lights a fire hahaha Or what the hell was going on in the clearing o.o we still have a looong way to go hahahah 
> 
> I would love to hear your opinions about this chapter! Comments and kudos are very much appreciated and my Twitter DMs (@babbl1ng) are always open for you to slide in haha^^ 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and till next month ig lmao <3


	7. Staying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellooo~

The next time Byeongkwan slowly opened his eyes, it was still pretty dark around him. However, there was also some light coming from a small lamp somewhere to his right and the ground, he was laying on, felt surprisingly soft. He frowned, blinking some more until his vision became clearer and his brain started to slowly start working again. Was this a bed he was lying in?

“Byeongkwan!” A voice suddenly exclaimed, leading a sharp pain to flash through his head. Immediately his hand shot to his forehead out of reflex, only to notice that somebody was holding it. Again, he frowned, before he looked up and right into Junhee’s tired and worried looking face.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.” The head boy immediately apologized before he carefully put a cooling hand onto Byeongkwan’s hurting forehead. “Wait, let me help you.” He mumbled, only for the pain to disappear some seconds later and the older’s shoulders to visibly slump down even more in exhaustion.  

“What are you doing?” Byeongkwan whispered weakly, not liking to see Junhee like this at all. The latter smiled at him, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I’m just trying to help…” He then mumbled, suddenly his eyes looking down onto their intertwined hands instead of his face. “You had to go through so much…” Byeongkwan didn’t really know what he was talking about, his mind still being too foggy. However, he could still remember how he had found out about Junhee’s and Donghun’s relationship and that he had run into the forest because of that. He also knew the head boy well enough to know that he was currently blaming himself for all of that.

“Junhee…” The other made a sound that signalized him that he was listening, while he carefully poured some water into a glass, without letting go of Byeongkwan’s hand for even a second. “It’s not your fault…Seriously.”

“I know.” The head boy replied but they both knew that this was a lie. “Still, we all were so worried about you. When you didn’t come back after dawn, the whole school started searching for you. Even the headmaster!” He paused, while he handed Byeongkwan the glass with water.

“Here, drink this.” The other slowly sat up, only now noticing that Chan was with them too, laying across his feet with his upper body, while seemingly being sound asleep. The thought that both of his friends had waited for him to wake up, warmed his heart and he thankfully took the glass from Junhee who watched him gulp down the water with a pleased expression. By now the memories of how he had wandered around the forest without a clue where to go, came back to his mind and he looked at his friend in confusion.

“So…did you find me in the forest?” He wanted to know and Junhee’s eyes widened in shock, giving him a different answer than he had expected.

“You were in the forest? Completely alone and at night?” His voice was full of horror and he grabbed his hand even tighter, before he shook his head.

“We seriously had no idea! We were still searching for you past midnight, when suddenly Sehyoon appeared in the school entrance, carrying you in his arms. There was so much blood everywhere and, when I saw you, I seriously thought…” Junhee gulped, apparently needing some seconds before he was able to continue talking. When he eventually did, his voice wasn’t much louder than a whisper,

“I thought you were dead…We all did. But then Sehyoon screamed something about you needing help and we realized you were only unconscious. He didn’t manage to tell us what exactly had happened, before he passed out too, but I’ve never seen him so worried…It reminded me that he is only a human like us after all…” His voice drifted away, while he seemed to get lost in his memories. Meanwhile, Byeongkwan thought about what his friend had just told him. The image of the monster appeared in front of his eyes and he shuddered, quickly brushing away that thought. Then another question came to his mind,

“Who is Sehyoon?” At this, Junhee looked at him surprised.

“You don’t know who Sehyoon is? But you two must have met in the forest…and he even goes to our class. You know, the cocky guy, with the silver hair…”

“His name is Sehyoon?” Junhee nodded. In that moment the sound of someone opening the door sounded and they both looked up, their eyes getting met with the image of Donghun walking inside, carrying a big tray with plates full of food. When his eyes fell on Byeongkwan, he smiled relieved.

“Oh, you are awake.” He said surprised and then stepped closer, putting down the food on Byeongkwan’s nightstand. Afterwards he placed himself next to Junhee, for some reason looking extremely awkward. “I…I brought some food.” He then stated the obvious.

“Thanks…” Byeongkwan mumbled, not really knowing how to act either. After all, they both had been silent rivals until now, only for Donghun to win in the end. Not that Byeongkwan seemed to have had a chance in the first place. “Uhh…you should eat. And you too, Juni. You need energy after all of this…” It looked like Donghun wanted to squeeze his boyfriend’s shoulder like he had done it so many times before in Byeongkwan’s presence but when his hand was halfway there, he suddenly stopped and then scratched his nose instead, looking extremely guilty.

“It’s probably better, if I leave again…If you need anything just call me…” Donghun eventually mumbled, after some minutes of awkward silence and wanted to turn around again. However, Junhee quickly grabbed his hand.

“Wait!” He exclaimed and like always Donghun immediately gave in, stopping in his tracks like the other had turned him into ice. “I really need to use the toilet and I haven’t brushed my teeth in over 24 hours…can you take my place for some minutes? I won’t take long.” Byeongkwan didn’t know, what Junhee thought he needed the puppy eyes for, because there probably would never be a time, when Donghun would be able to tell him no.

He only sighed, glancing at Byeongkwan, before he nodded and sat down on Junhee’s chair, while the latter got up, still not letting go of Byeongkwan’s hand. Then he suddenly felt how Donghun took his other hand and he looked at it confused, not noticing how Junhee’s warmth was now gone until he quickly left the room.

Suddenly it was only Donghun and Byeongkwan plus the still sleeping Chan who had started snoring at some point.

“Uhhh…I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything but there is seriously no need for you to hold my hand…” Byeongkwan mumbled after a while, only for Donghun to snort amused.

“Believe me, I don’t want this either but I also don’t want you to die so…” That made him frown confused.

“What does holding my hand have to do with me dying?” He wanted to know and it was obvious that Donghun was surprised that he didn’t know.

“Whatever happened yesterday; you really outdid yourself. When Sehyoon appeared with your body in his arms, you were on the edge of dying. The only reason you didn’t was because Jun and Chan gave some of their energy to you to help your body to recover faster.” This information shocked Byeongkwan and also made him feel extremely grateful. He could have died but his friends had decided to save him… Thanks to them he had managed to live for another day, even though it had seemed like his life would be over back in the forest. Then his eyes fell on Donghun’s and their intertwined hands.

“Does that mean you are giving me some of your energy right now, too?” The other nodded and then laughed at his surprised expression.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He wanted to know and Byeongkwan felt himself blushing in embarrassment.

“I thought you didn’t like me…” He then admitted and this time it was on Donghun to be confused.

“Really? Why? Because you had a horribly obvious crush on my boyfriend?” At the mentioning of his crush on Junhee, Byeongkwan felt himself flinch slightly, before he nodded.

“Don’t worry…I would need to hate a lot of people, if that was the case. I mean…I don’t think there is anyone who can understand you better than me. Junhee simply draws people towards himself and he deserves to be appreciated…He himself doesn’t do it enough.”

“Are you not jealous at all?” Donghun thought about this question for a while, before he smiled.

“I would be lying, if I said yes, but I trust him…and I trust in the bond between Junhee and me. I know, to you all of this must look simple. Maybe you think, I’m just a better guy than you or maybe you think, you would be way better than me, but that’s not what this is about. When I say that I love Junhee, it’s not only about attraction but something more. The bond between us reaches way deeper than that and someday, you’ll might be able to understand it.” Again, Byeongkwan felt his heart break at the way Donghun’s eyes were shining full of fondness, while talking about his love towards his boyfriend, but even though he envied the other, he wasn’t angry anymore at all. Maybe there simply hadn’t ever been a chance for him and Junhee, because the latter was fated to be with somebody else and so was Byeongkwan and that thought was weirdly comforting.

“I’m sorry for trying to steal away your boyfriend…” He mumbled and Donghun laughed.

“You aren’t the first one and also, you didn’t know…” There was a moment of silence before he spoke up again,

“Jun really likes you, you know. He was sick of worry…. Also, I feel like we had a kinda rough start but I think we could actually fit together pretty well and I would really like for us to be friends…Not only because of Junhee of course.” He smiled a bit awkwardly and Byeongkwan returned it.

“That would be nice…”

“Great…By the way, I’m really sorry you had to find out about our relationship in such a way. Actually, I thought you already knew about it, but your face made it pretty clear that you seemingly didn’t.” At this the other felt his face getting hot. How should he explain that he simply hadn’t wanted to accept it and therefore pretended to not notice anything even though it had been obvious from the start. However, before he was able to answer anything, the door suddenly got opened again and they both looked up, expecting Junhee to having returned. But instead of the head boy, they were met by the sight of bright silver hair. The boy – Sehyoon, how Byeongkwan had learned not too long ago – looked similar surprised as them, his eyes darting from Byeongkwan to Donghun and back.

“Sehyoon…” Donghun said, his voice sounding questioning but cold.

“Donghun…” The other replied similar distant. Once more, Sehyoon’s eyes wandered to Byeongkwan but this time they stayed on him. Suddenly the other was afraid that he would get hexed like seemingly every time, he had met Sehyoon, but nothing happened and he slowly relaxed. Only now he took the time to fully observe Sehyoon, noticing in shock that he was wearing bandages around his throat and arms and that some of his hair was still covered in dried blood.

“What do you want? Shouldn’t you be in bed, resting?” Donghun asked the question that had just come to Byeongkwan’s mind too, after realizing that the other was seemingly not even able to stand upright without holding onto the doorframe for support and that his skin looked nearly as pale as his hair. Sehyoon gave Byeongkwan one last observing stare which for some reason made goosebumps crawl up his neck, before he nodded, his eyes like always not showing any kind of emotions.

“I just accidently walked into the wrong room…sorry for bothering you.” With these words he turned around and disappeared, while Byeongkwan and Donghun looked after him. Sehyoon hadn’t been gone for even ten seconds, when the door got opened again, only for Junhee to appear in the doorway this time, looking as confused as Byeongkwan felt.

“What did _he_ want?” He asked, while walking closer and taking Donghun’s spot who thankfully let go of Byeongkwan’s sweaty hand.

“I have no idea…” He then replied, while sitting down on Chan’s bed on the other side of the room since there was no unoccupied chair left. “He said something about accidentally walking into the wrong room" At this Junhee just snorted humorless.

"As if he would do something like that...I bet he was searching for me. His goal is to annoy me as much as possible for some reason lately...Or at least he acts like it is..." Byeongkwan frowned. There were more and more questions piling up in his head and he needed to finally get some answers or else his brain would probably explode soon.

"What exactly is the deal with this guy?" Donghun and Junhee both shared a quick glance, for some reason looking uncomfortable.

"Sehyoon's story is... complicated." The head boy then started talking, while his boyfriend begun to eat the food which he had actually brought for Byeongkwan. The latter didn't mind. He wasn't feeling hungry anyways.

"His father was the former headmaster. Well, I say former, because two years ago, he suddenly disappeared and since then, Sehyoon has become the Sehyoon we know today."

"Wait...so he wasn't always like that?" At this Junhee wildly shook his head.

"Not at all! He was actually the best student in the entire school...I mean, he still is...just meaner..." That surprised Byeongkwan even more.

"But he doesn't even practice. He just stares out of the window throughout the entire class..."

"I know, it's crazy! I've never seen him practice either but he still manages to always get the best grades in the magic related exams. That's why the teachers just let him be. I have no idea how he does it though...I'm practicing a lot..."

"Jun hates him, because he wants to be the best." Donghun threw in with a full mouth and a teasing grin on his lips. He immediately earned himself a slap on the arm by his boyfriend for it.

"That's not true! I don't hate him...I just think it's weird...and maybe not quite fair..."

"No...it really isn't..." The other agreed, suddenly completely serious again. Byeongkwan watched them, his thoughts wandering back to the clearing and the horrible monster that had nearly killed him and Sehyoon. What kind of information had the other wanted from such a creature? And how had they both managed to escape? He closed his eyes, trying to focus as hard as possible on his memories. There had been blood and then nothing except darkness...or... no... Now that he was thinking about it, suddenly Sehyoon's panicked voice sounded through his head;

_"No! Byeongkwan!"_

A sharp pain in his forehead made him groan in agony. Immediately Donghun's and Junhee's attention was back on him.

"Byeongkwan? What is it? Did it get worse again?" The head boy’s voice was full of concern and slight panic. He wanted to put his second, free hand on Byeongkwan's forehead like he had done it earlier already but Donghun quickly pushed it away.

"What are you doing?" Junhee exclaimed offended but Donghun only rolled his eyes, before he closed them and placed his own hand on the Byeongkwan’s forehead.

"You are already too exhausted...you need to rest or otherwise you'll end up in the bed next to him." He mumbled and the pain became more bearable again a moment later. "I'm sorry, I'm not as good as Jun but if you would stop using magic for a second, you would heal a lot faster, believe me." Byeongkwan frowned confused.

"But I didn't use magic..."

"Of course, you did...that's the reason why you are here. You used too much energy for your body to handle since you can't control your powers yet and because of that you get exhausted easily and your head starts hurting."

"It's a horrible feeling." Junhee quickly added and Donghun nodded.

"You'll keep on growing stronger but until that's the case you should only use small portions of your magic or it could actually kill you...just like it nearly did yesterday." Byeongkwan stared at them with big eyes. "I used magic yesterday? But that's not possible! I didn't even manage to lighten the candle all those weeks and--", but he wasn't able to end his sentence since Chan suddenly rose from the dead. He blinked at them sleepily until realization seemed to hit him.

"You are awake!" He squealed, only to quickly lower his voice, when he earned angry stares from Donghun and Junhee. "Sorry...your head is probably still hurting, right?" Byeongkwan just smiled, feeling happiness at how relieved his friend looked.

"I feel much better already, don't worry."

"I'm so sorry something like this happened to you." Chan started apologizing similar to Junhee earlier and Byeongkwan quickly shook his head while looking at his friends. "It's not your fault...I'm the one who ran into the forest."

"You were in the forest?" Chan and Donghun exclaimed shocked.

"But why?" His roommate wanted to know and Byeongkwan noticed Donghun and Junhee sharing uncomfortable glances.

"Can you still remember what happened inside the forest?" Donghun quickly threw in, changing the topic. Byeongkwan thought back to Sehyoon and the scary creature on the clearing. For a moment he considered telling his friends, because he trusted them and they were worrying about him, but then he realized that Sehyoon had probably not been allowed to go and capture monsters in the forest at night. Byeongkwan didn't know why but for some reason he didn't want to get the other in trouble, even though he had acted pretty rude towards him until now. Therefore, he just slowly shook his head and Junhee gave him a comforting smile.

"Don't worry, it's fine. You can still tell us, when your memories come back. Until then you should rest so you can get better soon." Chan nodded in agreement, while Donghun gave Byeongkwan a scrutinizing look that made his hair stand up straight. However, the older didn't say anything and followed Junhee without looking back, when they left not much later.

"Sleep a lot so you can heal properly!" Were Junhee's last words, before he closed the door and left Chan and Byeongkwan alone in their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, this was all one kinda long scene but it was important kdKJBK can you believe that BK didn't even know Sehyoon'sname until now???? This is gonna take a while lmao
> 
> And we finally have some more infos on Sehyoon also o.o damn
> 
> Also can we talk about Dongjun being cuties and how much I love Junhee??? thanks   
> Dongkwan besties riseeeeee
> 
>  
> 
> Feedback is appreciated (a lot! pls leave your thoughts in the comments or your theories hehe)
> 
> My Twitter: @babbl1ng

**Author's Note:**

> Ik this is extremely short but it's also just an outlook for what is to come hahah I hope it made you feel at least a little bit excited  
> \---------  
> My Twitter [@Babbl1ng](https://twitter.com/Babbl1ng) :"D
> 
> I hope you are looking forward to more chapters~ <3


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